Guys. I know we don't market time here. But I feel like Bitcoin isn't really an investment so I don't feel bad about it. I put about $180 ($200 with fees added) into Bitcoin back in September, and I told myself- "Self, when it reaches $1000 you will sell $750". I was expecting it to take years, but it happened today. The price of Bitcoin was over $19,000, my "investment" was over $1000, so I sold. And I chickened out a little and only sold $700. So with the fees taking a percentage, I have $689 coming into my account in the next week. But. About 5 minutes after I sold the price dropped $3000. So I'm feeling quite lucky!!! Made my money back, and now the plan is to hold what I have for years and years to see what it does. I think my new instructions to "self" are to sell when my current $300 remaining in Bitcoin reaches $10,000. (I picked a crazy number on purpose). When it hits $10,000 I will sell $7000. Lol. Thank you, self.

Guys. I know we don't market time here. But I feel like Bitcoin isn't really an investment so I don't feel bad about it. I put about $180 ($200 with fees added) into Bitcoin back in September, and I told myself- "Self, when it reaches $1000 you will sell $750". I was expecting it to take years, but it happened today. The price of Bitcoin was over $19,000, my "investment" was over $1000, so I sold. And I chickened out a little and only sold $700. So with the fees taking a percentage, I have $689 coming into my account in the next week. But. About 5 minutes after I sold the price dropped $3000. So I'm feeling quite lucky!!! Made my money back, and now the plan is to hold what I have for years and years to see what it does. I think my new instructions to "self" are to sell when my current $300 remaining in Bitcoin reaches $10,000. (I picked a crazy number on purpose). When it hits $10,000 I will sell $7000. Lol. Thank you, self.

You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away . . . and know when to run.

Price divergence between different exchanges continuing to expand. Bitcoin prices at bitstamp and coinbase are now $1,000 off from each other. I don't understand why it's taking so long for prices to converge. Shouldn't it be easy for people to buy bitcoins at bitstamp, transfer them over to coinbase and sell for an instant profit? Or do the exchanges impose long wait times on bitcoin deposits?

Price divergence between different exchanges continuing to expand. Bitcoin prices at bitstamp and coinbase are now $1,000 off from each other. I don't understand why it's taking so long for prices to converge. Shouldn't it be easy for people to buy bitcoins at bitstamp, transfer them over to coinbase and sell for an instant profit? Or do the exchanges impose long wait times on bitcoin deposits?

Coinbase (and GDAX) have been a clusterfuck for the past hour. My guess is once the exchanges have ironed things out so that this stops happening, there will be minimal price discrepancies between exchanges.

The number of people with Coinbase accounts has gone from 5.5 million in January to 13.3 million at the end of November, according to data from the Altana Digital Currency Fund. In late November, Coinbase was sometimes getting 100,000 new customers a day — leaving the company with more customers than Charles Schwab and E-Trade.

....Recently, every last inch of space has been pressed into action. The day after Bitcoin hit $10,000 last week, a training session for Coinbase managers was moved to the game room because the engineering team needed to set up an emergency war room in the regular conference room.

The engineering team was trying to get Coinbase back up after the company’s site was knocked offline, overwhelmed by a wave of incoming traffic. The number of visitors was double what it had been during the previous peak — two days earlier — and eight times what it had been in June, the peak until recently.

I have been expecting a correction for some time now, I feel a healthy point is anywhere between $5K-$8K USD.

How does everyone else feel?

Fundamentally I am much more bullish on Ethereum in the mid and long term but never underestimate the uninformed public.

I agree -- I think bitcoin is too replaceable. Just like how if Uber disappeared 5 imitators could easily take its place in two months. If Ethereum catches any momentum it's going to be way bigger and less replaceable.

I have been expecting a correction for some time now, I feel a healthy point is anywhere between $5K-$8K USD.

How does everyone else feel?

Fundamentally I am much more bullish on Ethereum in the mid and long term but never underestimate the uninformed public.

I agree -- I think bitcoin is too replaceable. Just like how if Uber disappeared 5 imitators could easily take its place in two months. If Ethereum catches any momentum it's going to be way bigger and less replaceable.

I don't think Bitcoin is easily replaceable. There are too many things that Bitcoin has that no other alt-coin from both a network and ecosystem perspective. The computing behind bitcoin dwarfs the computing behind all other alt-coins and that means more security and stability. That's actual vast amounts of capital that's a part of the bitcoin network. Sure there are other cryptos out there that use SHA256 that the hashrate could go to, but then those currencies also don't have the legitimacy that Bitcoin has from an ecosystem standpoint. That is much more irreplacable than anything else. Bitcoin has legitimacy now from numerous derivatives markets opening up. It is only a matter of time before an ETF is approved as well. The shear number of wallets, apps, exchanges, payment operators, etc that all support bitcoin dwarfs every other alt-coin by comparison. So I don't understand the argument that Bitcoin is easily replaceable. Looking at things strictly from one angle doesn't paint the whole picture of how entrenched Bitcoin is at the number one spot. Trying to get that entire ecosystem as a whole to suddenly switch and adopt another crypto-currency is going to be an extremely tough sell from the perspective of any individual company considering that their business is on the line. This is an enormous hurdle for other alt-coins to get over. I'm not saying that it is an impossible hurdle, but it is enough of a hurdle for me to be bearish on all but Bitcoin at the moment.

For example, I don't think Ethereum is any threat to Bitcoin. Rootstock was just released this month as a Bitcoin sidechain that will allow smart contracts backed by the Bitcoin blockchain. Rootstock will allow for the same smart contracts that Ethereum supports. So if you're a developer looking to develop for either Bitcoin or Ethereum, there will be a very large draw towards developing a smart contract solution that is backed by the largest and most secure blockchain network on the planet. Ethereum will be left with a large number of bogus ICOs whereas bitcoin can start fresh with a blank slate of new smart contract ideas under a now more tightly regulated ICO space. Ethereum wasn't designed as a store of value either, so the scarcity just isn't there.

I want to let everyone know that IOTA is something you want to do some research on while the market cap is still under-valued.

Cheers!

Just noticed IOTA has climbed into the #4 slot in terms of cryptocurrency market cap (ahead of Ripple, right behind bitcoin cash) on extremely high trading volume since Dec 4th. Congrats on the prediction coming true, @Tonyahu.

Trying to get that entire ecosystem as a whole to suddenly switch and adopt another crypto-currency is going to be an extremely tough sell from the perspective of any individual company considering that their business is on the line.

Not really. Imagine Amazon coming up with a crypto-currency, Amazoncoin or similar. Bitcoin goes from $19,000 to $19 overnight.

Trying to get that entire ecosystem as a whole to suddenly switch and adopt another crypto-currency is going to be an extremely tough sell from the perspective of any individual company considering that their business is on the line.

Not really. Imagine Amazon coming up with a crypto-currency, Amazoncoin or similar. Bitcoin goes from $19,000 to $19 overnight.

I doubt it, coins don't share one pool of resources, you would likely see brand new money flow into AMAcoin. Also, BTC would be exchangeable whatnot.

I don't see it tumbling based on a single extra coin. In-fact BTC gets a lot of it's value by being agnostic in the first place.

I have been expecting a correction for some time now, I feel a healthy point is anywhere between $5K-$8K USD.

Looking at chart that seems low...I think support would kick in before that price....I think support would be around the 10-12k range. Has short term support near $15k if it holds that for awhile thats a pretty bullish sign.

Trying to get that entire ecosystem as a whole to suddenly switch and adopt another crypto-currency is going to be an extremely tough sell from the perspective of any individual company considering that their business is on the line.

Not really. Imagine Amazon coming up with a crypto-currency, Amazoncoin or similar. Bitcoin goes from $19,000 to $19 overnight.

Why would Amazon go thru all the trouble and cost to make a currency, why would I put my dollars into amazoncoin just to use on amazon. Atleast with bitcoin you can get a debt card and use it at other places.

My biggest issue with bitcoin is transaction cost they need to get that low to near a credit card level or lower for world wide acceptance.

I have been expecting a correction for some time now, I feel a healthy point is anywhere between $5K-$8K USD.

Looking at chart that seems low...I think support would kick in before that price....I think support would be around the 10-12k range. Has short term support near $15k if it holds that for awhile thats a pretty bullish sign.

it's a big "if," but if there's a big prolonged correction (like a 50%+ fall that lasts weeks/months) then you could see miners abandon the main chain for bitcoin cash. this happened briefly in November where 60+% of miners showed they are willing to simply mine the more profitable fork at any given time.

depending on how prices/difficulty oscillate between bitcoin and bitcoin cash at that point, the market could get very spooked.

i agree, except for a crisis like that i don't think prices would fall much below a 50% correction which would be in that $5-8k range.

This market is messed up by the "systemic risk" argument. Since the big banks won't let you margin up buying BTC, there isn't much systemic risk. But its worse, most retail brokers won't even let you short the BTC futures. So the dumb money is going long because its the only thing they can do.

The smart money is buying BTC and selling over priced futures contracts. They will close the near contract and open the next. This will keep a buying pressure on actual bitcoin for the next few months at least. sure you have capital holding costs and some MESSY transaction costs, but there is over a 1300 spread between a coin now on coinbase and a January 17th coin on the CBOE.

The smart money is buying BTC and selling over priced futures contracts. They will close the near contract and open the next. This will keep a buying pressure on actual bitcoin for the next few months at least. sure you have capital holding costs and some MESSY transaction costs, but there is over a 1300 spread between a coin now on coinbase and a January 17th coin on the CBOE.

^^This

I don't see a correction for quite some time. This cash-and-carry arbitrage between the underlying and the futures price is going to give the underlying bitcoin steady buying pressure. There are no storage costs to holding the underlying bitcoin asset and the transactions fees are negligible. You could even take out a low interest loan and hold the underlying without any risk and still make a locked-in profit in either direction. There will be plenty of traders looking to take this easy profit and this is going to create a bottom support that will prevent bitcoin from falling much from where it is now.

I want to let everyone know that IOTA is something you want to do some research on while the market cap is still under-valued.

Cheers!

Just noticed IOTA has climbed into the #4 slot in terms of cryptocurrency market cap (ahead of Ripple, right behind bitcoin cash) on extremely high trading volume since Dec 4th. Congrats on the prediction coming true, @Tonyahu.

Thank you brotha!

Everyone should take a look at Ardor as well.

Based on NXT which was the first Proof of Stake system and the first Alt-Coin coded completely from scratch. Ardor has taken this and how allowed for scalability with Child Chains and Pruning.

Trying to get that entire ecosystem as a whole to suddenly switch and adopt another crypto-currency is going to be an extremely tough sell from the perspective of any individual company considering that their business is on the line.

Not really. Imagine Amazon coming up with a crypto-currency, Amazoncoin or similar. Bitcoin goes from $19,000 to $19 overnight.

This post demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of where cryptocurrencies derive value from. What would be the point of a centralized coin by Amazon? And if it's not centralized, then why would it appeal to anyone over the other cryptocurrencies?

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

Two addresses are better than one, for security preference. Get something like veracrypt or truecrypt and at least 3 usbs. You can save private key or seed in the encrypted container for an extra layer of security.

It's better to use a fresh operating system if possible. If not, run a linux system off a disk. If you're generating an address through a paperwallet, be careful and make sure you're using a trustworthy site (also disconnect from the internet); there was a hack in plain sight where someone was using a special hash in the code where they could later derive the private key.

Another option is to simply get a nano ledger. This option will save you alot of steps and inconvenience.

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

chop that into a quarter and that's about the right position size. This is a spicy meatball of a momentum play and the winner of the game gets off the train one stop before the derailment. You shouldn't take a position size that large without your own value model. unless of course its VTSAX :)

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

chop that into a quarter and that's about the right position size. This is a spicy meatball of a momentum play and the winner of the game gets off the train one stop before the derailment. You shouldn't take a position size that large without your own value model. unless of course its VTSAX :)

Are you suggesting I only invest 2.5k period or do it in 2.5k chunks and store those separately?

@shadow the problem with the Nano solution is they are expensive I wouldn't want to buy more then one.

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

chop that into a quarter and that's about the right position size. This is a spicy meatball of a momentum play and the winner of the game gets off the train one stop before the derailment. You shouldn't take a position size that large without your own value model. unless of course its VTSAX :)

Are you suggesting I only invest 2.5k period or do it in 2.5k chunks and store those separately?

@shadow the problem with the Nano solution is they are expensive I wouldn't want to buy more then one.

keep your total position size small, to the 2.5 k ish total size, if you understand what a momentum play is. If you don't, then skip this speculation. BTC plays right now require an exit plan.

I've come to the conclusion that a mere $10 trillion crypto marketcap won't suffice. We will most likely see a marketcap that dramatically surpasses that amount.

Old-thinking is stuck and mired in physical assets, while new paradigm ushers in an era of algorithmic and digital assets. There's alot of unknown unknown potential, but people recognize the potential nonetheless.

I've come to the conclusion that a mere $10 trillion crypto marketcap won't suffice. We will most likely see a marketcap that dramatically surpasses that amount.

Old-thinking is stuck and mired in physical assets, while new paradigm ushers in an era of algorithmic and digital assets. There's alot of unknown unknown potential, but people recognize the potential nonetheless.

I feel anything under 1T (where we are) is still weak sauce and not even near mainstream.

The Dot Com bubble was 7T when adjusted for inflation.

10T is not out of the realm of possibility. If that happens, oh boy.....oh boy....

But to be frank, I am already starting to implement my risk management and will be pulling out 5% of total portfolio at every stop. First stop hit, second stop is very close.

I feel anything under 1T (where we are) is still weak sauce and not even near mainstream.

The Dot Com bubble was 7T when adjusted for inflation.

10T is not out of the realm of possibility. If that happens, oh boy.....oh boy....

But to be frank, I am already starting to implement my risk management and will be pulling out 5% of total portfolio at every stop. First stop hit, second stop is very close.

Cheers to all, enjoy this wild ride!

The new people coming in, if they have captured significant gains, should at least recoup their initial entry + extra, and can leave the rest for longterm. And for people that have yet to come in but want to, they should do so with a modest amount.

It is quite possible for the statements "bitcoin is in a bubble" and "bitcoin will be worth $1 trillion someday" to both be true at the same time. US real estate was in a major bubble in the mid-2000s, but that doesn't mean prices went to zero or that prices never increased again after the crash.

I tend to think the first statement is almost certainly true, we're seeing lots and lots of people buy bitcoin (both in the USA and in places like Korea) without knowing anything about it except that they read somewhere that the price is going up a lot.

I also tend to think the second statement is likely to be true if you amend it to "bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency will be worth $1 trillion someday." I also think the current surge in prices and transaction fees has made it less likely (though certainly not impossible) that currency with be bitcoin. The one big advantage bitcoin had over all the altcoins was the network effects of being the currency the most people had heard about and the currency the most online and in person businesses were already set up to accept payments in. Those two advantages will be substantially impaired by another major price crash (when/if it happens), and by the $20 transaction fees (already causing major merchants to either back off of accepting cyptocurrency payments entirely or switch over to lower fee currencies like ETH/LTC/BCC/MON*).

If the lightning network were already active today maybe it would be different, but I think we will find that once people switch over to using a different currency to process payments the long term damage is done.

*These are the only cryptocurrencies I've actually heard of people using to buy things online, apologies if I've missed others.

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

chop that into a quarter and that's about the right position size. This is a spicy meatball of a momentum play and the winner of the game gets off the train one stop before the derailment. You shouldn't take a position size that large without your own value model. unless of course its VTSAX :)

Are you suggesting I only invest 2.5k period or do it in 2.5k chunks and store those separately?

@shadow the problem with the Nano solution is they are expensive I wouldn't want to buy more then one.

if you were using actual physical paper wallets then yes you could use more than one and keep them in separate locations. if you're using a hardware Ledger wallet then you would only buy one of those and keep the seed phrase written down, on paper, in several secure locations -- NOT on any computer anywhere . if you are not comfortable holding $10k in a single wallet or the technical aspect of securely storing it, then perhaps it's still too early on for you to speculate with bitcoin. perhaps wait until an ETF is available.

So for those in the US, how are you tax planning for cryptos? The simple buy-hold-sell of the same coin is simple to treat like stocks. But, it appears the crypto to crypto exchanges do not count as like-kind exchanges so all of those trades will trigger a taxable event even though you received no cash. I think that it is how it works, but not positive. That definitely makes things a bit more difficult.

Also the BCH and BTG splits could be considered taxable and assigned a cost basis of their value on the first day you took position. The value when you received them would count as income.

I'm planning on doing the taxes as best declared by the experts and IRS briefing in 2014. I know there are a few crypto tax programs out there.

How are the rest of you handling this? Apologies if this has been discussed previously.

Old-thinking is stuck and mired in physical assets, while new paradigm ushers in an era of algorithmic and digital assets. There's alot of unknown unknown potential, but people recognize the potential nonetheless.

I really can't believe that I'm now seeing non-ironic uses of this phrase on a regular basis.I feel privileged to be a witness to the ongoing lesson of cryptocrazy, however it turns out.

What about GBTC? I don't see hardly anyone mentioning that on this thread.Tripled since thanksgiving.

if someone really doesn't understand the technical side and doesn't want to get involved with personally securing private keys -- basically, they want to purely speculate on bitcoin -- then GBTC is the only way to do that now. it's a terrible idea, but it's the only way.

for example, bitcoin has forked a few times recently and GBTC just sold their customer's coins on another fork. there is no reason for an impartial custodian to do this. GBTC is not fork-neutral which could blow up in their faces if there ever actually is a "flip" from one fork to another fork (becoming the consensus fork) and they loose all their investors' money.

Hi :) I haven't posted here in a long time, and I came back to see some "broader" opinions on cryptocurrencies, compared to the obviously biased opinions on crypto-forums.I've been reading MMM's blog for many years now, but barely use the forum.

I know I'm late to the party but I'm thinking of about 10k in Bitcoin. My networth is about 150k. I wouldn't be happy if it all went poof but I understand you also have to take some risk to really get a jump forward. I'm just really scared about the storage and security of it. I'm researching paper wallets and all of that but it is as scary as hell.

Should I split up the 10k into two 5k wallets? Or smaller?

chop that into a quarter and that's about the right position size.

Paper wallets are pretty straight forward, although not very intuitive. Make sure you understand them before going in big. Bitaddress.org is the most trusted site to generate them, but don't take my word for it: do your own due diligence.Splitting them up doesn't matter now, but it makes it much easier if you want to sell only a part of your holdings later on. If you spread 1 Bitcoin over four wallets with 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 Bitcoin each, you can just choose which one to empty to sell in the future. Paper wallets should not be used to withdraw only a part of the balance!

My storyI started keeping track of the value of my Bitcoin in May 2016, it was worth just under 1% of my networth. Before that, it wasn't worth registering the value, I collected it as "play money".In January this year, it reached 3% of my networth, and since May this year I've started selling small amounts. This year I also got into some altcoins, but never more than 10-20% of my total crypto holdings. So far, I've sold (at current value) 7% of my networth (25% of my crypto), and my current crypto holdings are approximately 30-40% of my networth (I keep a broad margin because of it's volatility).Now the scary part: I'm torn between FOMO and FUD! I'd never invest this much in something this volatile if I wouldn't have it already (=the FUD part), but I also don't want to miss out on a possible x10 in the coming years (=the FOMO part). I realize this isn't rational, but it has kinda grown on me.If I would never have sold any crypto, my net worth would be 8% higher now.

Now the scary part: I'm torn between FOMO and FUD! I'd never invest this much in something this volatile if I wouldn't have it already (=the FUD part), but I also don't want to miss out on a possible x10 in the coming years (=the FOMO part). I realize this isn't rational, but it has kinda grown on me.If I would never have sold any crypto, my net worth would be 8% higher now.

My way of tackling this concern is cashing out a bit along the way. I'm already ahead (on a USD basis) after my mining experiment, what I have left in BTC/BCH is just extra gains. With what remains I think I'll cash out 25% of present holdings if it doubles from when I last sold (at $11,600), and if it keeps going, continue doing that. This way, I've already more than made back my investment, I get to keep riding it in case we get to $1M/BTC by 2020 like John McAfee wants, but I get extra cash out along the way in case this whole thing is a bubble that pops down to $1/BTC in a month or a year.

Let's say you had $10,000 of short term capital gains income in 12/31/17. So you get taxed on that. But then on1/2/2018 bitcoin crashes and your 10K (which you plowed back into BTC) then goes to 0. You still owe the tax from the prior year's gain right? Does the IRS offer some way to balance this out?